OpenEB is the open source project associated with Metavision Intelligence

It enables anyone to get a better understanding of event-based vision, directly interact with events and build their own applications or plugins. As a camera manufacturer, ensure your customers benefit from the most advanced event-based software suite available by building your own plugin. As a creator, scientist, academic, join and contribute to the fast-growing event-based vision community.

OpenEB is composed of the 5 Open modules of Metavision Intelligence:

• HAL: Hardware Abstraction Layer to operate any event-based vision device.
• Base: Foundations and common definitions of event-based applications.
• Core: Generic algorithms for visualization, event stream manipulation, applicative pipeline generation.
• Driver: High-level abstraction built on the top of HAL to easily interact with event-based cameras.
• UI: Viewer and display controllers for event-based data.

This document describes how to compile and install the OpenEB codebase. For further information, refer to our online documentation where you will find some tutorials to get you started in C++ or Python, some samples and applications to discover how to use our API and a more detailed description of our modules and plans.

Currently, we support Ubuntu 18.04 and 20.04.

Install the following dependencies:

sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install apt-utils build-essential software-properties-common wget unzip curl
sudo apt -y install cmake libopencv-dev git
sudo apt -y install libboost-all-dev libusb-1.0-0-dev libeigen3-dev
sudo apt -y install libglew-dev libglfw3-dev
sudo apt -y install libgtest-dev

For the Python API, you will need Python and some additional libraries. If Python is not available on your system, install it (we support Python 3.6 and 3.7 on Ubuntu 18.04 and Python 3.7 and 3.8 on Ubuntu 20.04). Then install some extra libraries:

sudo apt -y install python3-pip python3-distutils
python3 -m pip install pip --upgrade
python3 -m pip install "numpy==1.19.5" "opencv-python>=4.2.0.34" pytest

If you want to run tests, then you need to compile gtest package (this is optional):

cd /usr/src/gtest
sudo cmake .
sudo make
sudo make install

The Python bindings rely on the pybind11 library, specifically version 2.6.0.

Note that pybind11 is required only if you want to use the Python bindings of our C++ API. You can opt out of creating these bindings by passing the argument -DCOMPILE_PYTHON3_BINDINGS=OFF at step 3 during compilation (see below). In that case, you will not need to install pybind11, but you won't be able to use our Python interface.

Unfortunately, there is no pre-compiled version of pybind11 available, so you need to install it manually:

wget https://github.com/pybind/pybind11/archive/v2.6.0.zip
unzip v2.6.0.zip
cd pybind11-2.6.0/
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DPYBIND11_TEST=OFF
cmake --build .
sudo cmake --build . --target install

1. Retrieve the code git clone https://github.com/prophesee-ai/openeb.git
2. Create and open the build directory in the openeb folder (absolute path to this directory is called OPENEB_SRC_DIR in next sections): cd openeb; mkdir build && cd build
3. Generate the makefiles using CMake: cmake .. -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF
4. Compile: cmake --build . --config Release -- -j 4

You can now use OpenEB directly from the build folder. For this, you will need to update your environment variables using this script (which you may add to your ~/.bashrc to make it permanent):

source <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/build/utils/scripts/setup_env.sh

Optionally, you can deploy the OpenEB files in the system paths to use them as 3rd party dependency in some other code with the following command: sudo cmake --build . --target install. In that case, you will also need to update LD_LIBRARY_PATH with export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/usr/local/lib (If you want to update this path permanently, you should add the previous command in your ~/.bashrc)

To get started with OpenEB, you can download some sample recordings and stream them with metavision_viewer. The RAW plugins included in OpenEB will allow you to read the RAW files. However, if you are planning to use a Prophesee camera, then you need to install Prophesee plugins by following this procedure:

• Go to the sign-up page for Prophesee Camera Plugins
• Download the .list file for your version of Ubuntu and add it to the folder /etc/apt/sources.list.d
• Install Prophesee plugins:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install metavision-hal-prophesee-plugins

Note that the previous command will download the Prophesee Camera Plugins for the latest version of OpenEB. If you are using a previous version of OpenEB, specify the version number in your command: sudo apt -y install 'metavision-hal-prophesee-plugins=x.y.z'

Running the test suite is a sure-fire way to ensure you did everything well with your compilation and installation process.

Note that the Prophesee Camera Plugins must be installed for most of these tests to run.

• Download the files necessary to run the tests. Click Download on the top right folder. Beware of the size of the obtained archive which weighs around 500 Mb.

• Extract and put the content of this archive to <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/. For instance, the correct path of sequence gen31_timer.raw should be <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/datasets/openeb/gen31_timer.raw.

• Regenerate the makefiles with the test options on.

cd <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/build
cmake .. -DBUILD_TESTING=ON

• Compile again. cmake --build . --config Release -- -j 4

• Finally, run the test suite: ctest --verbose

Some steps of this procedure don't work on FAT32 and exFAT file system. Hence, make sure that you are using a NTFS file system before going further.

You must enable the support for long paths:

• Hit the Windows key, type gpedit.msc and press Enter
• Navigate to Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Filesystem
• Double-click the "Enable Win32 long paths" option, select the "Enabled" option and click "OK"

To compile OpenEB, you will need to install some extra tools:

• install cmake
• install Microsoft C++ compiler (64-bit). You can choose one of the following solutions:
  • For building only, you can install MS Build Tools (free, part of Windows 10 SDK package)
    • Download and run "Build tools for Visual Studio 2019" installer
    • Select "C++ build tools", make sure Windows 10 SDK is checked, and add English Language Pack
  • For development, you can also download and run Visual Studio Installer
• install vcpkg that will be used for installing dependencies:
  • download and extract vcpkg version 2020.11-1
  • patch a configuration file to fix a known issue with this version of vcpkg. In the file C:\vcpkg-2020.11-1\scripts\cmake\vcpkg_acquire_msys.cmake, on line 81, add "https://mirrors.zju.edu.cn/msys2/" (this is adding a new mirror server). This can be achieved with the following command (to adapt to the path in which you extracted vcpkg):

    powershell -command "& {&'Invoke-WebRequest' -OutFile C:\vcpkg-2020.11-1\scripts\cmake\vcpkg_acquire_msys.cmake -Uri https://files.prophesee.ai/share/dists/public/vcpkg/vcpkg_acquire_msys.cmake}"

  • cd <VCPKG_SRC_DIR>
  • bootstrap-vcpkg.bat
• finally, install the libraries by running vcpkg.exe install --triplet x64-windows libusb eigen3 boost opencv glfw3 glew gtest dirent
  • Note that to avoid using --triplet x64-windows, which informs vcpkg to install packages for a x64-windows target, you can run setx VCPKG_DEFAULT_TRIPLET x64-windows (you need to close the command line and re-open it to ensure that this variable is set)

The Python bindings rely on the pybind11 library (version 2.6.0). You should install pybind using vcpkg in order to get the appropriate version: vcpkg.exe install --triplet x64-windows pybind11

Note that pybind11 is required only if you plan to use the Python API. You can opt out of creating these bindings by passing the argument -DCOMPILE_PYTHON3_BINDINGS=OFF at step 2 during compilation (see section "Compilation using CMake"). In that case, you will not need to install pybind11, but you won't be able to use our Python interface.

• Download "Windows x86-64 executable installer" for one of these Python versions:
  • Python 3.7
  • Python 3.8
• We advise you to check the box to update the PATH or update the PATH manually with the following paths after replacing the Username to your own and using the Python version you installed (here, we assume that the install is limited to the local user and the default install path was used):

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37
C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python37\Scripts

• Finally, install additionally required Python packages using pip:

python -m pip install pip --upgrade
python -m pip install "numpy==1.19.5" "opencv-python>=4.2.0.34" pytest

First, retrieve the codebase:

git clone https://github.com/prophesee-ai/openeb.git

Open a command prompt inside the openeb folder (absolute path to this directory is called OPENEB_SRC_DIR in next sections) and do as follows:

1. Create and open the build directory, where temporary files will be created: mkdir build && cd build
2. Generate the makefiles using CMake: cmake -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\cmake\toolchains\vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_DIRECTORY=<VCPKG_SRC_DIR> ... Note that the value passed to the parameter -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE must be an absolute path, not a relative one.
3. Compile: cmake --build . --config Release --parallel 4

You can now use OpenEB directly from the build folder. For this, you will need to update your environment variables using this script:

<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\build\utils\scripts\setup_env.bat

Optionally, you can deploy the OpenEB files (applications, samples, libraries etc.) in a directory of your choice. To do so, configure the target folder (OPENEB_INSTALL_DIR) with CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX variable (default value is C:\Program Files\Prophesee) when generating the makefiles in step 2:

cmake .. -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\cmake\toolchains\vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_DIRECTORY=<VCPKG_SRC_DIR> -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<OPENEB_INSTALL_DIR> -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF

You can also configure the directory where the Python packages will be deployed using the PYTHON3_SITE_PACKAGES variable (note that in that case, you will also need to edit your environment variable PYTHONPATH and append the <PYTHON3_PACKAGES_INSTALL_DIR> path):

cmake .. -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\cmake\toolchains\vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_DIRECTORY=<VCPKG_SRC_DIR> -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<OPENEB_INSTALL_DIR> -DPYTHON3_SITE_PACKAGES=<PYTHON3_PACKAGES_INSTALL_DIR> -DBUILD_TESTING=OFF

Once you performed this configuration, you can launch the actual installation of the OpenEB files:

cmake --build . --config Release --target install

Open a command prompt inside the openeb folder and do as follows:

1. Create and open the build directory, where temporary files will be created: mkdir build && cd build
2. Generate the Visual Studio files using CMake: cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\cmake\toolchains\vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_DIRECTORY=<VCPKG_SRC_DIR> .. (adapt to your Visual Studio version). Note that the value passed to the parameter -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE must be an absolute path, not a relative one.
3. Open the solution file metavision.sln, select the Release configuration and build the ALL_BUILD project.

To get started with OpenEB, you can download some sample recordings and stream them with metavision_viewer. The RAW plugins included in OpenEB will allow you to read the RAW files. However, if you are planning to use a Prophesee camera, then you need to install Prophesee plugins by following this procedure:

• Go to the sign-up page for Prophesee Camera Plugins
• Follow the Camera Plugins download link provided after sign-up
• Among the list of Camera Plugins installers, download the one with the version number matching your OpenEB version
• Run the installer

Running the test suite is a sure-fire way to ensure you did everything well with your compilation and installation process.

Note that the Prophesee Camera Plugins must be installed for most of these tests to run.

• Download the files necessary to run the tests. Click Download on the top right folder. Beware of the size of the obtained archive which weighs around 500 Mb.

• Extract and put the content of this archive to <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/. For instance, the correct path of sequence gen31_timer.raw should be <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/datasets/openeb/gen31_timer.raw.

• To run the test suite you need to reconfigure your build environment using CMake and to recompile

  • Compilation using CMake

  1. Regenerate the build using CMake (note that -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE must be absolute path, not a relative one)::

     cd <OPENEB_SRC_DIR>/build
     cmake -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\cmake\toolchains\vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_DIRECTORY=<VCPKG_SRC_DIR> -DBUILD_TESTING=ON ..
     

  2. Compile: cmake --build . --config Release --parallel 4

  • Compilation using MS Visual Studio

  1. Generate the Visual Studio files using CMake (adapt the command to your Visual Studio version):

     cmake -G "Visual Studio 16 2019" -A x64 -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<OPENEB_SRC_DIR>\cmake\toolchains\vcpkg.cmake -DVCPKG_DIRECTORY=<VCPKG_SRC_DIR> -DBUILD_TESTING=ON ..

     Note that the value passed to the parameter -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE must be an absolute path, not a relative one.

  2. Open the solution file metavision.sln, select the Release configuration and build the ALL_BUILD project.

• Running the test suite is then simply ctest -C Release